“I will really miss everything about Horikoshi. They helped me to have my career, my friends, and my good grade at the same time. Thank you for making me 4^th place in this batch. I will really miss my friends outside Hey! Say! JUMP.  I’ll miss the nights when Yama-chan, Yuto, Kamiki, Mirai-chan and I went Ghost Hunting. It was a really fun experience, unfortunately we didn’t see one.”

Chinen Yuri, on his graduation interview, 2012

Talking about high school brings back a lot of memories. It was those times when we could still goof around and mess with our friends, simply enjoying youth. It was those times when you think you have grown up, but really, we were still such a nitwit pretending to be mature. If we look back during those times, you’ll remember when you encounter different types of people with different types of characteristic. All piled up in one single class.

Especially my class. The exclusive celebrity class of Horikoshi. Our batch, line 93 was gifted with popular and talented entertainers in Japan. You probably thought it would felt really incredible having all those influential people in our generation to be in one room. But really, we were no different than any other high school kids. We’re just a bunch of goofballs trying to figure out about our lives, and where to place our self in the society.

Flashback to the moment when I have my casual morning starts in class. Usually I sat in my seat silently as I observe my friends.

Starting from Chinen Yuri. That idol from Hey! Say! JUMP. Urgh, that kid. I don’t understand what he’s made of. Despite being little sized, he’s super smart. The fact that he’s in the fourth place for the entire batch explains it all. He’s also good at sports. That kid can do anything. And then he has this ability, (or talent?) I don’t know, that could make everyone pamper him. It’s weird that almost everything he asks for will be granted by anyone around him. It’s like he possess some kind of of supernatural power.

Which was no surprise to me that in the end, everyone agreed to his bizarre scheme offers.

“Let’s go ghost hunting tonight!”

 Out of nowhere, that kid would suggest some absurd suggestions. And oddly enough, everyone would definitely agree to come along.

“I’m in!”

Of course, the first person to excitedly respond to this would be this guy.

Yamada Ryosuke. You definitely know him, another Hey! Say! JUMP member. He’s supposed to be a heartthrob across the nation, being the golden boy of Johnny’s and the center of his band and stuff. You’d be surprised at how different he is at school.

Anyway, the reason he agreed directly to Chinen was simple. 1) He’s officially Chinen’s sugar daddy that will do anything for the little brat. I bet he would even dive down to Atlantic Ocean just to fetch a pearl for the kid if he ever ask him to. And 2) He loves every single thing about ghosts. He is a self-claimed ghost expert. To the extent of being a pro at knowing all sorts of ghosts. If you throw him a random name of a ghost, he would fluently give you the exact description of that ghost exactly like the ghost guide books you would find in libraries.

See? He's completely different than what you think, right?

“Uwaaaa, scarry!”

Then there’s that guy. The third Hey! Say! JUMP member in our class, Nakajima Yuto. Out of the three, he’s the manliest looking one. It can’t be helped though, since his other two band members are irritatingly too beautiful for a guy. His outward appearance somehow brings off Hanazawa Rui kind of aura, you know, the cool guy in Hana Yori Dango? But once you hear him talk, seeing his extravagant gestures and endless grins, you realize that he’s just made out of dorkiness. And he is extremely weak about ghosts and dark places.

“Scaredy-cat!”

That direct remark belongs to none other than Kamiki Ryunosuke. The only non-band members of their group. The actor prodigy. He’s as much as a dork as Yuto, I guess. Probably with a slight touch of cockiness.

“Scaredy-cat, scaredy-cat, scaredy-cat!”

He was beginning to chant those words out.

“Cut it out, will you!” Yuto tried to grap Kamiki’s mouth to shut him up. He was flustered. Kamiki managed to dodge his attack and prevent Yuto’s hand to be in contact with his mouth. Seeing his constant fail attempt, Yuto hissed beside him.

“Suzuka might hear us!”

The other three boys glanced briefly at the other side of the room. Yup, Suzuka was there, having casual morning conversations with Umika and the other girls.

“YUTO IS A SCAREDY-CAT! SCAREDY-CAT! SCAREDY-CAT!”

Kamiki continued on. This time with a louder tone. Yuto glanced frantically at Suzuka’s direction, who was now beginning to look in suspicion at the three boy’s direction.

“Fine I’ll go!”

He finally gave in. Just as I thought. Nothing can beat a man’s pride. Especially in front of his crush.

“Kamiki is coming too, right?” Yamada asked.

“Of course!” the happy-go-lucky boy immediately answer.

“Yosh! Then the four of us would go ghost hunting!” Chinen smirked excitedly as he rubbed his hands together. His pure evil smirk.

I shivered upon witnessing it. I’m telling you, that kid is using black magic!

“You should come too, Mirai-chan!”

Despite examining my friends and following their conversation, I was actually silently busy reading a novel, Kotaro Isaka’s work. It took me several minutes to absorb the question. And the mention of my name. Before I literally flipped that poor defenseless novel to the floor.

“EH?!!”

********

So here I am, in the middle of the night, stuck with these bunch of goof heads. I really had no idea what kind of supernatural power that Chinen Yuri has, eventually I was also dragged into his spell.

We waited until the school is completely empty. Chinen and I are supposed to be a model student, and we’ve never done anything like breaking rules in our entire life. I have no idea what nonsense got into his head for coming up with something like this so randomly.  

“We can’t risk anyone seeing us tonight,” Chinen briefed as we peek into the school ground from the gate of the school. As daring as Chinen is for coming up with this idea, yappari, he also doesn’t want to get in trouble. We needed someone to really make sure that no one would see us. So Chinen’s first plan was: sacrifice one of us as a decoy.

“I’ll do it,” Yamada volunteered.

I instantly shot my gaze at him, disbelieved. Was he being courageous just then? Sacrificing himself for his friends?

“I get in trouble a lot. Won’t be a problem for me at all to get another detention,” he shrugged casually.

Nope. I guess he was just being carefree. As usual. Too carefree, if I have to say.

So then it was decided that Yamada became our look out for the night. He threw caution to the wind, then left the cover of the school gate, towards the direction of the main building. He tiptoed, looking back and forth throughout his surrounding attentively, with the styles of James Bond when he infiltrates some enemy base. His antics were tolerable for a few seconds, but then he continuously did it over exaggeratedly, and it’s starting to get on my nerve. He’s fooling around!

“Don’t you think doing that kind of stuff is making our movements look way too fishy?!” I eventually protested behind our hiding wall. I was immediately confronted by a hiss from the three other boys.

After he was done sweeping around the area we were going to enter, he signaled with a wave of his hand towards our direction, indicating that the coast is clear.

Since Chinen is playing the chief in this absurd ghost-hunting mission, he gets to determine the places we should explore. Our first target was the old school library.

“Do you guys know why they decided to leave the old library building?” Yamada asked out of the darkness, as we sneak pass the old building corridor towards the library.

There it is. His love for ghostly stories. He’s gonna spend the entire night throwing those stories at us.

Horikoshi High School was established by Chiyo Horikoshi back in 1923. Some of the building was still in its original state, including this old library. The school had constructed a new main library building in the central area, but they still kept that old library building there in a more secluded place. The reason behind that was never clear, and it remained a mystery to us. This had attracted some rumors, stories and legends about that old building. Though I doubt most of those stories were anywhere near true. It was from the students after all, and I’m pretty sure most of us tend to over exaggerated things too much from the original tale, adding some spice to make the story more interesting.

“They say that years ago, there was a girl, a student, who was trapped inside the library for days, without anyone knowing. By the time they opened the library, it was all too late…”

I shivered a little at the thought of seeing a dead body inside the building. Chinen and Kamiki was walking in front of us. I realized that I was walking at the very back. I stepped pass Yamada and snuggle in between him and Yuto. It was dark and the only source of light we have was the one and only torch that was in Chinen’s hand, so my sudden movement had scared Yuto to death that he screeched at me and grab onto Yamada’s body to hug into.

“SSHHH! Somebody could hear you!” Chinen whispered at him madly for making turbulent noises in the middle of the corridor. I nodded my head apologetically at Yuto. I noticed that he had squeezed Yamada’s body too hard to the extent of suffocating the boy. He immediately let lose, and Yamada gave him a glare.

“Let’s just stop with the stories okay…” Yuto begged.

“Have you guys ever heard of rokurokubi?” instead, Yamada probed further.

“I don’t know, and I don’t care,” I quickly countered, before he stimulate any more scary imaginations in my head with his stories.

“They’re female monsters, with long, flexible necks…” I shot Yamada with a deadly glare upon ignoring my remark. My deadly look didn’t affect him a bit! He continued to blurt out stupid ghost stories!

“They look just like ordinary humans during the day, but at night, they would extend their necks to frighten or spy on people. They say the poor girl had turned into rokurokubi.”

The next instant I accidentally had the corridor window view in my sight, and I began imagining the existence of such creature that could suddenly appear from one corner of it. I immediately shut my eyes and directed my gaze to another direction.

There was another clanking sound, and both Yuto and I abruptly grab into Yamada’s respective arms as we let out another shriek. I swear if these kind of stuff continues on, I might be getting a heart attack. I even saw Kamiki yanking at Chinen’s shoulder beside him.

“I told you to stop telling those stories!” Yuto protested, smacking Yamada’s head hard.

“We’re here…”

Chinen halted without any warning, causing the rest of us to bump into him. We all followed Chinen’s gaze, and there it was, right in front of us, the—

“—The gate of hell…” Yamada mumbled beside me in utter amusement.

I was going to say the door of the old school library though.

Chinen gave a nod at us, instructing us to proceed with the ghost-hunting.

Yamada gulped. “It’s completely dark in there…”

Did I mention that despite loving ghosts, Yamada has a phobia for dark places?

 “The light switch is on the other side of the room,” Chinen explained calmly. “We need to cross the room to switch it on.”

“This is ridiculous!” Yuto said, having his hands clinging on to Yamada’s shoulder. “We’re not entering that place!”

Kamiki chuckled. “Oh come on Yuto, acting like a coward again!”

“Then Kamiki, you go first,” Chinen ordered, motioning at him to take a step ahead.

“NO WAY!” he immediately refused.

“Well, well, who’s the scaredy-cat now?” Yuto sneered.

“I’m not scared!” Kamiki quickly defended. Clearly, he was lying.

“You’re the ghost expert!” Kamiki pulled Yamada’s body and shoved him ahead of us. “You go first!”

“Hell no!” Yamada broke away from Kamiki and went to hide behind Chinen. “I’m bad with dark places! Chinen, you go first!”

Chinen sighed in annoyance, rolling his eyes. “It would be so boring if I go first.”

Then, I felt four gazes directed towards me. 

“EH?!” my eyes widened at them. I instinctively pointed at myself. “ME?!!”

The four of them nodded approvingly. I frowned, making a face at each of them. Unbelievable!

“Don’t worry, we’ll be right behind you,” Chinen said. I can somehow see him smile despite having his face concealed by the darkness. His evil smirk. Why you little evil punk—!!!

And so, magically, Chinen’s spell controlled me for the nth time. He handed me the one and only torch we have.

I dared myself to enter the room behind that old rusty door. I could feel the boys nervous breathe close behind my back. The door screeched a little as I give it a small push, but it echoed through the edges of the space behind it. What we saw was a never-ending dimension of darkness.  

Slowly and steadily I took one step at a time, getting deeper into the darkness. I could feel the boys hands were all on my shoulder. Suddenly my irritation was back. These shameless cowards! How can they let me be the front man in this! To think that I was the only girl in there!

I was struggling with the panic attack inside me upon feeling the sudden paranoia as I look around the vast darkness that expands forever in every direction. When suddenly, like some kind of explosion, the lights of the room .

“AAAAAARRRRRRRGGGHHHHHH!!!”

We instantly screamed in unison upon the sudden change. I reflexively grabbed the closest thing around me and buried my face underneath it.

Once the panic attack ended, and my heart beat had stabilized a little, I dared to open my eyes.

At the edge of the room, I saw Chinen Yuri, standing beside the light switch button. He was cackling maniacally in pure satisfaction.

“GOTCHA!” he said, holding onto his stomach as he laughed even harder. That brat! He had planned this from the beginning! He went to turn the light on by himself!

“CHINEN!” the four of us exclaimed in annoyance.

I saw Yuto and Kamiki, was hugging tightly onto each other. They immediately released themselves from each other, still looking pissed.

Then, I realized I was also hugging something. I looked up and met Yamada’s eyes. We were hugging at each other.

We instantly released our grip on each other. Yamada cleared his throat nervously, scratching his head. I fixed my hair and instantly looked away to another direction. I could feel my cheeks began to burn in embarrassment.

“Well that wasn’t funny!” I protested, giving Chinen a deadly glare. As Chinen returned to us, the boys promptly gave him a smack. Not affected by our anger, Chinen laughed even more.

“Seems like nothing’s here,” Kamiki said, looking around.

I observe my surrounding. Kamiki was right. It was just like an ordinary library. Nothing specifically eerie or special about it.

“Then let’s proceed to our next hunting spot then,” Chinen suggested.

Yamada, who was standing beside me, immediately gulped.

“You mean…. the school forest?”

********

If Yuto is afraid of ghosts, Yamada has a million other phobias, despite being a ghost maniac. I’ve mentioned about his fear of darkness, right? Well, aside from that, he’s also scared of heights, scared of small rooms, and even scared of girls. Trust me, if we haven’t become friends during Tantei Gakuen Q era, he might never have talk to me in a million years. Just like how he never talks to the girls in our class.

Anyway, the forest of the school is an adrenaline-jerker. It’s dark, and it’s located in the upper ground of the school, in a more secluded area. Large trees tower everywhere with short distances between each of it. You can imagine how crazy this is for him to enter?

Chinen knows about Yamada’s phobias more than anyone else. but he proceeds to do it anyway. I had no idea why he’s being so consistent in torturing his friends. But miraculously, Yamada still agrees to come along.

We began entering the forest ground. We could see the abrupt change of environment surrounding us. A few seconds ago, we could still see the moon shining confidently up high in the dark sky. But now, it was covered with the thick branches of the forest trees.

We’ve just entered the forest zone for a few seconds, when suddenly we saw flicker of lights, directed towards us from the main building area. Then, we could faintly hear low voices murmuring from the distance.

“OI! WHO’S THERE?!”

Uh-oh. It’s the security guards. They were heading towards the forest now. Towards our direction!

“RUN!” I could hear Kamiki’s voice. But I was in a state of panic. I’ve never been trapped in this kind of situation. And I don’t want to get into any trouble!

 The guards kept closing in. At that state, if I was going to run towards the school ground, I will definitely get caught! My only way was to go further deeper into the forest, or hide myself in there for the time being.

I glanced around. It was completely dark. I could faintly hear my other friends whispering and murmuring suggestions and orders, but I was still panicking I couldn’t catch up with them. By the time I managed to arrange my messed up mind, I was too late. The others were already gone from my sight. I was completely alone.

I decided to pace deeper into the forest blindly. I was too afraid to return and get caught.

My heart pounded hard. Sweat began to drench my forehead. I searched blindly into the darkness. Where do I go? Where should I go?

Then, I felt someone grab me by the hand. I was about to scream in terror, but then that person instantly grabbed my mouth.

“Mirai-chan, calm down! It’s me!” he whispered to my ear. I managed to identify that voice. It was Yamada. He let go of his grip on my mouth. I immediately breathe a sigh of relief.

“Come on, follow me,” he grab my hand again, and without waiting for my agreement, he dragged me away from that place, deeper into the woods. I managed to look back towards the direction of the school building. The searchlight of the guards was approaching closer now.

We stopped in front of a shack. A small shack that I never knew existed in this school woods before. I noticed Yamada was hesitating. But then, the lights of the guards continued to closing in on us.

Upon this, Yamada made a quick call. He pulled me along into the shack, and shut the door handle behind it. As the door closes, the little rays of moonlight that penetrated the forest branches were completely gone. It was pitch black now.

We stood silently beside each other. I could clearly hear his breath above my head. We could hear the low voices of the guards, right in front of us, and also the faint light of their torches. I closed my eyes, pleading and praying they wouldn’t find us.

( to be continued … )

Author's Note:

This story was inspired by Chinen's graduation interview that I read in several sources, that I have quoted at the beginning of this story above. Though I can not guarantee whether the source was right or not, trustworthy or not. The happenings in this story was pure my imagination xD